The Californian city of Oakland yesterday gave the green light to the "industrial" cultivation of marijuana for medical use, and will next year issue up to four permits to create a "Silicon Valley" of dope.
The city council's decision, Reuters explains, aims "to bring medical marijuana cultivation into the open and allow the …

THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How can they allow anyone anywhere near this drug which we know causes leprosy, schizophrenia, sexsomnia, paedophillia, geriatrophilia*, narcolepsy, insomnia, paranoia, agoraphobia, claustrophobia, gangrene, crack addiction and the ability to snowboard better than anyone else in the world?!?!?!?

This should be outlawed now and Prozac or Ethanol should be used instead!

Don't forget

Great idea

We should do the same in the UK. Consider that I've been able to get weed to my door faster than a pizza for the last 3 years with no real problem, the govt. may as well tax the stuff and save the police time as well.

Let's face it. If it were legalised, people will still hold their stigma towards it. It's not like everyone in the UK would immediately start getting high and going to work off their face.

It's also not like

most employers would welcome you turning up stoned. I mean they don't like you turning up drunk, and some don't even like "mildly hungover".

So the effect on UK productivity will be nothing. Until you realise that you're incarcerating fewer people- so productivity goes up. And we could grow it locally- so we'd make more money and get out of the recession faster.

Plus if they legalised it, we could get the Taliban onside pretty quickly. "Yeah, so stop shooting us and we'll stop shooting you- and we'll provide you a market for your crops so long as you let us see you don't fund terrorism against us or our allies."

So our safety increases.

And we're out of recession faster.

And it's one more nail in the head for the 'Mail's 1950s view of the UK.

And it'll show that our government is a strong willed one able to make tough, hugely popular decisions.

Missing one beat

At least here in the US, prisoners are not granted many of the protections of the constitution, so our big corporations can and do use them for slave labor, paying pennies an hour. If non-violent offenders are released, the productive labor force may not be increased, but the average cost of labor will.

There are actions that are good for people, and there are actions that are good for corporations, and the two do not always align. I believe that the Netherlands has been a long standing example of the societal benefits of decriminalization of a wide range of activities that are broadly considered improper on this side of the pond. Yet being "tough on crime" remains a priority for any political hopeful.

Come on Dave Legalise it

it will be wonderful - junior partner, WTH, lead by example Mr Cameroonie, we want a legal smoke on the Isle, put the Great back into Britain. US to be part of the commonwealth, come on Satan Obama boy join us, you are doing well.

Hmmm

So who cares?

The feds don't. They'll go into California and bust people for smoking it legally because it's still a federal offence. Creating a large industrial plot sounds like madness - the feds can still come and bust everyone involved.

Arguable...

This would likely fall into a State's Rights argument.

The US Constitution gives the Federal government to ability to regulate interstate commerce, but depending on how you read the relevant parts[1] California has the right to grow and distribute Marijuana as long as it stays completely within its own borders.

Frankly I hope they pass it. The pot I get around here is pretty lousy.

Re:Stigma

Legalisation is often the first step towards reduction of stigma.

If you think drunks sticking traffic cones on beleasha beacons, shoving pasties in ATMs, and various other yobbish acts is bad now imagine how bad it would be if they were high. Plus the act of lighting up is a fire hazard, not wise to let someone who is high as a kite loose with a match or lighter.

Of course this is just more evidence for the ICCCN (international campaign to clean california by nuking).

Dont

"imagine how bad it would be if they were high"

They'd have eaten the pasty for a start.

Lighting up while drunk is also a bad idea, but we still allow that- outside pubs. You know, over a non-flammable concrete floor and in the open air. And that's when they've got a bloodful of flammable liquid rather than already burnt crap in their lungs.

Plus, stoned people tend to be a lot more passive and less yobbish than drunks. A herd of horny wild boars on speed are less yobbish than a lot of drunks.

Anyway, I'm off to have a nice legal pint of intoxicating, flammable car fuel mixed with corrosive crap (or a double vodka and coke to the rest of you)

"Only two things came out of the University of Berkley in 1969...

> If you think drunks sticking traffic cones on beleasha beacons, shoving pasties in ATMs, and

> various other yobbish acts is bad now imagine how bad it would be if they were high.

They'd probably be at home, staring at the wall, eating munchies. So basically like people playing WoW, but without any silly £150 headsets. For a less sarcastic answer, see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norm-stamper/420-thoughts-on-pot-vs-al_b_188627.html

Besides, if you nuke California, where would you get all your hardware technology from?

@AC 21:03

Oh, goody.

What a funny country I live in. We give children plain, straight methamphetamine (trade name Desoxyn, FDA-approved to treat ADHD), we pickle our livers with the metabolic products of ethanol, and we think, rightly, that it's your own business if you decide you're crazy enough to roll up a datura flower and smoke it; yet we're afraid of /this/ stuff and it's a big deal that somebody might be able to grow plain old Mary Jane industrially in California without being tossed in the pokey for the rest of his life. I guess drugs are only bad if they're /fun/.

I expected California would be the nucleation site, so to speak, for this sort of thing to get started legitimately. It's probably all the hippies and the rumors of incredible dope coming from that state that compelled me to make such a prediction.

I, for one, look forward to the improvement in quality. If there's one thing America does well, it's agriculture. I also look forward to convincing lots of alcoholics to take up something fun that won't encourage them to smash any of my dishes or vomit on any of my furniture. By comparison, the worst messes potheads have ever made in my house have been a few dirty dishes.

Daily Mail

I checked out the Daily M after hearing, I think it was on, www.yourfreedom.gov,comments, that Jane Asher had been quoted as saying that "they should just go ahead legalise all drugs", I was pleasantly surprised by the tone of the comments, they were predominately in favour of the Idea with some really sensible points raised, not sure if the comentards were the usual readers or tourists like me though, and I doubt that they would reflect the editorial stance of the paper. it does seem that this idea has finally come of age though, not before time either.

Also the DM has a really nifty voting system with red down or green up arrow to record your appreciation or otherwise, no log in required.

what will the unemployed do for a living?

All the people who for various reasons are unable to get employment in the "real" economy still have to live somehow, especially in the US where benefits are few and far between for long-term unemployed.

There is a thriving "black" economy among these people, not kept black so much because they don't want to pay their share of taxes, but because they're afraid to admit where their income comes from.

So they give dope growing to big agribusiness. What next? legalise prostitution, armed holdups and rolling drunks in dark alleys? what will the lower classes live on?

Seriously the biggest danger in legalising is, how will they sell it? no more mulling up and rolling your own? how long before Big Tobacco steps in and starts selling them ready-made, cut with other products and the 40 (or is it 4000?) nasty chemicals added and the taste destroyed?

"Let me in" ... "Dave's not here" *

belive it or not

Politicians in Texas are thinking about legalizing pot . They only reason why the feds were able to go after the medical pot places is because there were so few of them and they knew were every one was at.